


A New Machine

by AstroGirl



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-03
Updated: 2009-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Orac is badly damaged in an accident, the local aliens are able to salvage him... but he's not at all happy about the methods they use.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Machine

**Author's Note:**

> I've rated this "mature" because it does contain one m/m sex scene, but one which I would describe as merely "semi-explicit." So it's not for kids, but it's not exactly a porn-fest, either.

He had been damaged. Badly. Badly enough that the self-diagnostic circuits, which should have told him just _how_ badly, no longer seemed to be functioning. Large portions of him seemed to be missing, inaccessible.

His link to the Zen computer, a constant presence since he had left Aristo, was gone. He reached out for it, straining for contact. Nothing. It was as if Zen no longer existed.

He attempted a broader scan, searching for any computers that might be in the vicinity, searching for data, for a link to the outside universe. Still nothing. He couldn't even tell if he were successfully broadcasting, which, logically, would seem to indicate that he wasn't.

He was not, however, completely cut off. He could hear: a faint susurrus, as of a ventilation system. And if he could hear, that must mean his activator was in place. Why, then, could he not detect it? And why could he not see?

He would not admit to feeling anything as irrational and organic as fear. But refusal to acknowledge the building panic did nothing to make it subside. He was blind, and crippled, and alone. He had never been meant to function alone, cut off from the tarial universe that was his proper domain.

Desperately, he reached out again, straining to activate damaged circuits. _Any_ circuits. He was aware, vaguely, of strange feedback signals he could not interpret.

And then he could see.

The visual input was all wrong. He only had 180 degrees of vision, maybe less -- it disturbed him that he could not calculate the number precisely. His color vision was brutally truncated at either end of the spectrum, and there was something strange about his visual acuity, as if he could only properly focus on whatever spot on which he currently happened to be concentrating his attention. It was disorienting. More than that, it was disturbing. He could think of no type of circuit damage which could cause such a malfunction.

He needed assistance. He needed repairs. He needed to know what had happened to him. If he could not make contact via tarial link, he would try the only other means of communication available to him.

At first he seemed to have difficulty making sound and began to despair that his verbal circuits, too, had been damaged or destroyed. But repeated effort eventually produced a strange, raspy vocalization, and then, suddenly, it was as if some unperceived relay had flipped within him and he was able to produce words. "Is there anyone there? I demand to know what has happened!"

The voice that emerged was not the one that had been programmed into him.

No one answered.

**

Avon's first thought, upon awakening, was that he was not on board the _Liberator_. So, naturally, his second thought was to reach for his gun. Fingers met bare flesh where his gun belt should have been, and he realized that not only was his weapon missing, so were his clothes.

Not good.

He sat up and began to assess his surroundings with all the calm detachment he could muster. He was alone in an ovoid room, walls made of some white, fibrous material that looked as if it had been organically grown together. The ceiling and floor were of the same substance, and the bed on which he sat -- if bed were quite the right word for it -- seemed to be of a piece with the floor, growing up from it on a single pedestal like some strange variety of mushroom. The spongy substance that covered the bed was warm and gave slightly beneath his touch. There were no sheets or blankets, though a small bulge at one end had apparently served him for a pillow. The rest of the chamber was quite barren, most notably of his possessions.

Alien design, he thought. More alien even than _Liberator_'s. How the hell had he got here? The last thing he remembered...

The last thing he remembered was half a mountainside crashing onto him.

He should be dead.

He quickly took stock of his physical state: a little disorientation, which was only to be expected on waking up in an unfamiliar place. Other than that... nothing. Not so much as a headache. Not so much as a bruise. He felt good, in fact. Better than he'd felt in a long time.

And that wasn't right, because he remembered the pain of the boulders smashing into him, remembered the bruising blow to his gut as he landed atop Orac's hard angular casing, remembered the agony of what had surely been the bones in his arm shattering, remembered, vaguely, the blow to the back of the head that had knocked him into unconsciousness for what he had believed would be the last time.

Stupid of him. He had to admit, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that he had been guilty of a staggering mass of stupidity which surely would have done Blake proud. Stupid, to have let the crystals in the detector shield deteriorate to the point where they'd been forced to either brave a supply run into Federation-patrolled space unshielded or find somewhere to dig the things out of the ground themselves. Stupid, no matter how much he'd wanted to get away from the others, to teleport down to the planet by himself to find them.

And finally, _unforgivably_ stupid to have fired when he saw the creature on the precarious rubble-strewn slope above him. Even if it had been coming at him. Even if it _did_ look like something from Vila's worst nightmares. He'd realized it even as he'd done it, of course, but hadn't been able to stop his tightening finger in time. He was getting trigger-happy. Occupational hazard, he supposed, but that didn't make it any more excusable.

Well, there was no point in sitting around here waiting for one of Tarrant's heroic rescue attempts. And having worked up a good, solid head of self-annoyance, he felt more than ready to direct it outwards. Avon dropped to his feet and, drawing a cloak of dignified scorn over him to cover any potential embarrassment at his nakedness, he stalked over to the outline of what he assumed to be the door.

He'd taken only a few steps towards it, however, when it irised open, and the alien came in.

If it wasn't the same individual he'd seen on the rocky slope, it was certainly its close kin: compact, hairy black body suspended among an improbable number of segmented legs, each covered in cruel-looking spikes and each, were it to be unfolded, longer than Avon was tall.

He tensed, desperately aware of the lack of anything he could possibly use as a weapon. If it attacked, he thought, mind racing, his best bet would be to attempt to maneuver round it and through the door. He would never be able to defeat it unarmed and naked.

It did not advance, however, merely stood there blocking the door. Appendages like the mandibles of an ant clicked rapidly on the front of its body, making a complex series of sounds.

"You are awake." The voice, in perfect, accentless Federation Standard, emerged from a vibrating membrane stretched across an organic-looking framework strapped to the upper part of one of the thing's legs. A translator. He attempted to conceal his surprise.

"I see that the penchant for stating the obvious is not merely limited to those of humanoid species."

The alien blinked at him, lids sliding slowly over the bulbous eyes perched atop the front of its body in a manner that would have been comical in a less nightmarish-looking creature. "How do you feel?"

"Well, I'm alive, somewhat to my surprise, I admit. Your doing, I presume?"

"Mine and others', yes. You were badly injured. The repairs were difficult, but you should now be functional and in good health."

There seemed only one reasonable response to that. Grudgingly, he made it. "Thank you."

"There is no need to thank us. We are sworn to the preservation of intelligent life, in whatever form it may take. Even when that life is hostile." Did he detect a note of rebuke in the artificial voice?

"I was not aware that _you_ were intelligent. Unless you intend keeping me prisoner, I am not your enemy."

"That is well."

Enough small talk. "Where are my things? Clothing, a bracelet. A large plastic box."

"Your clothing was destroyed in the rock fall and has been fed into the recyclers. New clothing can be grown for you, if you wish. The technological device you refer to as a 'bracelet' was also badly damaged, but we have preserved the wreckage for you, should you wish to examine it." The creature paused, shifting its weight from one side of its body to the other. He wondered if there was some significance to that: a sign of nervousness, or reluctance? "As for the 'box'... May I assume you are referring to your artificially intelligent companion?"

He hoped the alien could not read _his_ body language, as he flinched slightly in surprise.

"I am sorry," it continued. "But that entity was also very badly damaged, and my people's expertise lies in biology, not in mechanical technology. We were able to determine that his consciousness was in danger of being permanently lost, but we did not have the skills to repair his physical components. We were, however, able to preserve your companion's consciousness by downloading it into an appropriate biological substrate."

"_What?_" Oh, god. What had this race of mad-scientist spiders done with Orac?

"I can take you to see him, if you desire."

"Yes! Wait. No. Clothes first." Damned if he was going to parade around naked, no matter how much of his biology these aliens had seen.

"As you wish."

**

Orac had no idea how much time had passed when the alien finally entered the room. Yet another item to add to the long list of internal malfunctions.

"I apologize for not being here when you awoke," the creature said as it came through the doorway. "I was tending to your companion."

It was not a species he recognized, and under ordinary circumstances he would have been interested in learning more about it and the unusual translator technology it was employing. But, for once, he had higher priorities than the accumulation of knowledge for his databanks, and he ignored the alien, instead concentrating his limited and odd-angled vision on the human figure that entered beside it.

"Avon! Where have you been? My communications links are down, my processor speed has been greatly diminished, my sensory input is malfunctioning, and a number of my circuits appear to be inoperative. I will require repairs immediately. I suggest you begin by..."

But Avon, who had simply been standing there, eyes wide and round, began to laugh.

Orac had never particularly understood the human sense of humor, despite Vila's best efforts, but he would have thought that Avon, at least, had enough appreciation for Orac's value to preclude finding humor in his incapacity. "I fail to see what is so funny!"

"This..." Avon addressed the alien. "_This_ is what you've done with Orac?"

"As I said, it was necessary to employ a biological substrate. As he was found in your company, we felt that he would be more comfortable with your form of life than with ours. You, of course, were the only source of genetic material we had for your species."

_Why_ would these organisms -- human and alien alike, it seemed -- never speak clearly and directly? "I require a more coherent explanation. What is it that has been done to me?"

"You were damaged…" the alien began.

"Yes! Yes! I am aware of that!" he snapped, frustrated, as always, at the painful slowness of verbal communication, willing the creature to simply get to the point.

"Well, it certainly sounds like Orac." Avon shouldered past the alien before it could speak again, coming towards Orac until he blocked most of his field of vision. He stood there looking at Orac for a moment, then reached down and touched... Touched Orac's...

The input made no sense. It was very much like the meaningless pseudo-sensations that he had earlier dismissed as random noise, caused by the malfunctions in his sensory apparatus. But this… This was not noise. This was genuine sensory feedback, perfectly coordinated with what he could see of Avon's movements. This was information. This was, presumably, what it was like to have a sense of touch.

And, in a moment, Avon's hand rose until it again entered Orac's field of vision… holding a human hand.

Orac's thoughts were moving slowly, sluggishly, his intellectual capacity far, far below what he considered nominal. And yet, he had not been robbed entirely of the capacity for deductive reasoning. He considered again what the alien had said. "Biological substrate." It all made a horrifying sort of sense.

He made a tiny moaning sound, quite involuntarily.

"It was necessary in order to preserve your existence," the alien said. As if that excused this act of butchery.

Avon ceased his inspection of the hand, extended his fingers instead to touch what must be Orac's face. Yes, the sensations began to fall into place. Hands there, face here. Now that he knew what to concentrate on, Orac was aware of the feeling of some soft substance beneath him, gentle upward pressure against his body. Human fingers traced a line down his cheek, overwhelming him with unfamiliar sensation as his processors -- or whatever bundle of neural material now served him as a processor -- tried to integrate it all.

"Well," Avon said with a peculiar smile. "At least they gave you an attractive visage."

As if he cared what he looked like to humans. "I demand that you restore me to my proper form at once!"

"I'm afraid that is not possible," said the alien. "My people do not have the expertise to repair that type of technology."

"Then Avon must effect the repairs! The current state of affairs is unacceptable."

"Let me see it," said Avon.

The alien strode over to the wall in which the door was set and traced a complicated pattern over the fibrous white material with one forelimb. Silently, a hole opened in the wall and extruded a small platform on which sat... Orac. Or rather, what had once been Orac.

He stared at the battered plastic box with a sense of dismayed fascination. _This_ was how human senses perceived him? How unimpressive. Undignified, even. But then, Ensor had never had a particularly advanced sense of aesthetics.

The top panel of the casing was already loose, and Avon lifted it off, making a small hissing sound between his teeth as he did so. It wasn’t difficult to ascertain the source of Avon's displeasure: even from here, even with his distressingly decreased perceptions, the damage was obvious. Delicate components had broken themselves loose from their housings and shattered. One corner of the casing had buckled and cracked, the circuitry it held crushed almost into unrecognizability. Orac felt his new, organic body twinge with unfamiliar and highly unpleasant feedback at the sight.

"The main processor unit is almost completely degraded," Avon was saying, "the communications crystals have fractured, and much of the secondary circuitry has sustained damage. It looks like the memory banks are intact, at least. I should be able to repair it eventually, but not without tools and replacement parts."

"We have neither of these things," said the alien.

"_I_ don't even have some of them." Avon straightened and faced Orac -- or rather, the current seat of Orac's consciousness -- with a tight, unpleasant smile. "It looks as if you may be stuck like that for some time."

Orac's body shuddered.

**

Vila sat at the teleport console, feeling nervous. What were they going to do if Avon was dead? Worse yet, what were they going to do if they couldn't find Orac? So much for their secret weapon against the Federation. So much for any hopes of ever managing a repeat of Freedom City.

Well, at least they wouldn't miss Avon as much if they didn't have Orac for him to keep in line. As long as Zen stayed nice and functional, that is. Some hope. Besides, Vila felt fairly sure he'd actually end up missing the old...

The console beeped.

Vila started slightly, then reached down and pressed the communications button. "_Liberator_. Have you found him yet?"

No answer. Not even the faint hiss of an open comm channel.

Panic began to well up from somewhere in the back of Vila's mind. What if whatever it was that had got Avon had the others now, too? What if they'd all been crushed in another rockfall or whatever it was? What if he was all alone on the _Liberator_ now, just him and Zen…

The console beeped again, still insisting that there was an incoming transmission.

He frowned and looked more closely at the console. What the...? He pushed another button, and a voice came through, loud and clear and very unhappy. "_Liberator_, come in!"

"Avon! You're alive!" Relief washed over him like a hot shower after a hard day's thieving. "What are you doing on this frequency?"

"My bracelet's not functioning. The locals kindly lent me the use of their transmitter. Get--"

Vila cut him off. "Locals? Zen said this planet was supposed to be uninhabited!"

"Well, apparently even Zen doesn't know everything. Now get down to these coordinates, and bring two bracelets with you."

"Two? What, you mean besides my own?"

"Yes, Vila. I would think that even your rudimentary grasp of mathematics would be up to the task of adding one plus two."

"But why do you--?"

"Just do it. _Now._" Hmm. That didn't sound like an I'm-about-to-be-shot "now," more like the usual I'm-starting-to-lose-patience "now." Which was good, because Vila could see one small problem with this plan.

"I can't. I'm the only one on the ship. All the others are down there looking for you. Speaking of which, what _did_ happen to you? No, never mind, tell me when you get here. I suppose I can come down and bring you a bracelet and Orac can operate the teleport."

There was a short pause on Avon's end. "No," he said in that flat but somehow obviously annoyed tone peculiar to Avon. "No, it can't. Bring the others up and then come down."

The signal cut off.

With a long-suffering sigh, Vila hit the retrieval button and reset the coordinates.

"Vila!" Tarrant had barely finished shimmering, and already he was yelling. "What are you playing at? We weren't finished..."

"It's all right, Tarrant. I found him."

"What?" Wonderful, Dayna was practically yelling at him, too.

"Well, all right, he found me. Anyway, he's on the planet, and he said to come and bring him a couple of teleport bracelets." He grabbed two of them from the rack and held them out to the closest of his newly-arrived shipmates, which happened to be Cally. "Here. You go."

"You're the one who knows what's going on," said Tarrant, handing him another bracelet. "_You_ go."

"We'll both go," said Cally pulling him gently onto the teleport platform as he automatically snapped the bracelet into place. "Put us down, Dayna."

"Now, wait a…" The teleport took him before he could finish the sentence, and anything else he might have added to it died unsaid as he stood there blinking in astonishment at the scene in front of him.

Under normal circumstances, the strange gadget that looked like a cross between a radio transmitter and a half-dissected frog would have held his attention for quite some time, but its place in his perceptions was immediately overwhelmed by the existence of the giant spider standing next to it.

Vila yelped and cowered behind Cally, who was standing there with her mouth hanging open... and not, Vila abruptly realized, at either the gadget _or_ the spider. She was looking at Avon.

Vila almost forgot the presence of the terrifying alien himself as he realized what it was that had struck Cally dumb. He blinked hard, but the image didn't go away. "Avon! There's two of you!"

Avon -- the Avon that was standing up -- smiled tightly and took the teleport bracelets from Cally, who was making a valiant attempt to regain her composure. He snapped one onto his own wrist, and the other onto the Avon who was floating in the odd hoverchair contraption. They were both dressed in some sort of loose, flowing white robe.

_This is it,_ he thought. _The strain of teleport finally killed me, and I'm in heaven, and all the angels look like Avon. Or would that make it hell? That'd explain the creepy-crawly demon-thing, anyway._

"Help him stand," said the first Avon, nodding brusquely towards his seated duplicate. "He hasn't quite got the hang of it yet."

"Avon?" said Cally uncertainly, looking from one to the other, as if unsure which one to address.

"_I_ am Avon. _This_\--" he made a small, disgusted gesture towards the second one "--is an unfortunate and hopefully temporary emergency measure."

Vila glanced back and forth between them, trying desperately to figure out just what sort of emergency would necessitate the availability of a spare Avon, and how you'd go about getting one if it did. As he peered more closely, he could see that they weren't _quite_ identical. The sitting Avon, the one who had not yet spoken, was considerably younger-looking than the Avon he knew, and the hair was slightly different, and there was something about the eyes... They both wore nearly the same sour expression, though.

Cally nodded, clearly deciding that now was not the time to ask questions, although the perplexed look on her face plainly indicated that, like Vila, she was going to want some answers soon. She moved forward, her hand dropping briefly to the hilt of her gun as she passed the spider, and took Avon Number Two's arm.

"Vila," she said, tilting her head in an unmistakable come-here gesture.

Vila took a step forward, stopped, licked his lips, glanced at the alien, tried to take another step forward and realized he was rooted to the spot.

"Is something the matter?" the spider inquired politely, causing Vila to do a passable imitation of having a heart attack while simultaneously jumping out of his skin.

"It won't hurt you," said Avon derisively, although Vila felt strangely unsure whether he was talking to the alien or to him. "Go and help Cally so we can get the hell off this planet."

He skittered nervously past the spider and positioned himself at the second Avon's other arm, smiling weakly down at the bizarre not-quite-Avon face and getting a reasonably Avon-ish scowl in response as he and Cally pulled the figure unsteadily to its feet.

The first Avon -- the real Avon, if he were to be believed -- bent to pick something up, and Vila realized that it was Orac. A very battered, bent, and broken Orac. A strange, disturbingly organic-looking piece of apparatus rested atop the plastic case.

"What happened to Orac?" said Vila, mildly dismayed by this sight.

"I have been subjected to considerable indignities, not the least of which is having to stand here and listen to your inane prattlings when we should be making our way back to the ship!"

It took Vila a moment to realize that the voice hadn't come from Orac's casing, and another to realize that it hadn't quite been Orac's voice. By the time he'd recovered his own voice enough to say anything, he couldn't, because Avon had called for teleport and his vocal cords were in the process of being relocated.

**

Orac lay, on what he currently had no choice but to think of as his back, on the table in the medical unit as Cally scanned him with the medical sensors and the humans babbled on to each other about his condition. He was, of course, quite used to being discussed as if he were not present; ordinarily, he even welcomed it, for if they were ignoring his presence it meant he could ignore theirs and concentrate on more interesting pursuits of his own. But, trapped in this body as he was, there was nothing for him to do but lie there and listen, each pointless utterance growing more and more annoying.

"And once we get him fixed, you're sure that gadget they gave you will be able to put him back?"

"That _is_ its attested purpose, Vila."

"But how do you know it'll work?"

"Given the advanced level of biological technology the aliens have demonstrated simply by creating this situation in the first place, I don't see why it wouldn't. However, if it doesn't, well..." Avon smiled nastily. "We do know where to find them."

"The resemblance really is fantastic." That was Dayna. She was standing somewhere behind him, out of his field of view, but Orac was mildly relieved to note that he could still easily identify her by her voice patterns. The human auditory sensors, at least, must be very close to what he was used to. "He looks just like you! Only younger."

Responding to some nuance on Avon's face that Orac hadn't particularly bothered paying attention to, Dayna giggled. "Oh, don't worry, Avon. I think you look distinguished!"

Avon's look changed to a not-at-all-nuanced glower. Orac wondered exactly how one operated the human facial muscles to produce that expression. He imagined it could potentially prove very useful.

"I don't suppose, after all this, that you actually managed to come back with any crystals?" Tarrant, hovering just inside his field of vision.

"No. The aliens didn't even know what I was talking about. They don't use crystal technology. And now that Orac is completely useless, we've no way to scan for them." He gave Orac a condemnatory look.

That did it. "May I remind you that my, as you put it, 'uselessness,' is entirely your fault, Avon? Furthermore, it is scarcely _my_ fault that your inadequate excuse for a ship's computer lacks the sensory capability to penetrate the planet's ionospheric interference with sufficient sensitivity."

He reached out, unthinkingly, to monitor Zen's reaction, anticipating the minute but fascinating change in signal quality that it invariably produced when someone had maligned its capabilities.

Nothing. Of course.

"It could grow exceedingly tiresome, not being able to remove your key," said Avon.

"I entirely agree!" he said, letting his annoyance at his own lapse transfer itself back to Avon, the more deserving target.

"So what are we going to do?" said Vila.

"We will have to proceed with plan B," said Avon. "A raid on a Federation facility to acquire the crystals, as well as the necessary replacement parts for Orac."

"Which, as you recall," said Tarrant, "was my plan in the first place."

"Yes. Cally, what have you found?"

Cally finished the last of her scans and returned the equipment to its resting place. "He is a perfect clone of you, Avon. The DNA shows no replicative degradation at all." She sounded impressed. "And his body is in perfect health."

"Good." Orac felt Avon's hand clamp down on his arm. He wondered if he would ever get used to the sensation. Hopefully, he would not be in this body long enough.

"Vila," Avon was continuing, "You and Dayna go down to the storeroom, get one of the spare beds, and set it up in my quarters. I'm sure I don't need to unlock them for you."

"Here, now, I don't--"

Avon glowered again. Vila left, Dayna trailing behind him.

Orac was definitely going to have to learn how to do that.

"You," said Avon, looking down at him, "get up."

"I believe we have already established that I am incapable of independent locomotion." Idiot human.

The idiot human smiled at him as if _he_ were the inferior entity. "You have already proven capable of speech," he said. "That requires far more precise coordination than walking. Doubtless the aliens pre-programmed your brain with the necessary skills."

Irritatingly, this made perfect sense. It did not, however, tell him how to access the appropriate subroutines.

"I will help you," said Cally gently, her hand on his other arm.

The look on Avon's face grew thoughtful. It was a look Orac knew well, the one that crossed his face when he was absorbed in some technical problem. He found it oddly reassuring.

"Remote drones," Avon said. "You had control of remote drones, did you not, on Aristo?"

"I did." He still had control of them, in fact -- or rather, he had yesterday -- but there being little of interest left to him on Aristo, he had not bothered with them for a long time.

"Well, then. I imagine the principle is much the same. Control the body as you would control the drones."

"The drones were controlled via ultra-dimensional signals!" he protested.

"Which you are no longer capable of emitting, I know. But if the aliens have done their jobs properly, I imagine the process should be quite analogous. Try it."

"Oh, very well." Feeling slightly foolish -- a state to which he was entirely unaccustomed -- he concentrated on the body's left arm, sending it an "up" command, as he would to a flying drone.

The arm obediently lifted. Avon smiled. "There. Cally, help me steady h-- it."

With the two of them assisting, he was able to stand, moving his limbs deliberately, one at a time. He stood swaying between them, desperately attempting to work the calculations that would tell him how to stand so he balanced. He couldn't remember the exact figure for the _Liberator_'s gravity field, and the equations kept slipping away from him. How could he be expected to _think_ with this inferior human brain? How did they _do_ this, with so little processor power?

"Do not try so hard." Cally's voice, speaking quietly next to his ear. "Relax. Let your body do what it knows how to do."

Like a remote drone. If they could do it, surely he could do it.

Hesitantly, lurchingly, humiliatingly, they made it down the corridor to Avon's room.

**

Avon had never really appreciated just how much work went into maintaining a human body. Orac had learned to balance itself and walk smoothly enough after a bit of practice, but it had still needed to be taught to eat, to use the sanitary facilities, to wash and dress itself... And, of course, it complained the entire time: about the inferiority of the human form, about Avon's skills as an instructor, about the necessity of wasting its precious time performing such functions at all. "No one will be happier than I to see you restored to your proper state," he told it. "You make an even more pathetic excuse for a human being than Vila." But his irritation, much to his surprise, was mixed with an odd stirring of jealousy. How many hours of his life _had_ he lost to eating, to grooming, to tending the needs of this organic shell he inhabited? How much had he failed to learn and accomplish due to the limits of his brain, his senses, the fragility of his body? If all went well, Orac would be free of it all in a few days. But for Avon, if all went well -- not that there was any reasonable expectation of that -- it would be decades, with no hope of anything better lying at the end of it.

And how many hours, how many _years_, he wondered, had he frittered away in sleep? It did not surprise him in the least that Orac resisted the condition; he felt rather disinclined to give in to it tonight, himself.

He lay there for a long time, listening to it stirring uncomfortably in the darkness.

It was going to be a long night.

**

Orac sat in Avon's quarters, staring at the blank wall, which continued to not do anything interesting. Avon had instructed him to stay here, and his programming, a fundamental facet of his identity that had survived his transfer entirely intact, compelled him to obey the orders of humans. Still, this isolated inactivity was intolerable, and the vistapes Avon had left him to pass the time were such a painfully slow medium of information transmission as to be almost worse than no mental stimulation at all.

However, the word "here," he reflected, was incredibly imprecise. It could be used to refer to this room, this ship, even this sector of the galaxy. Given that degree of leeway, it seemed only reasonable to interpret the command as broadly as possible. Orac rose from his chair and proceeded to the flight deck.

It was devoid of humanoids when he arrived. But not empty. Of course.

"Zen," he said, without intending to, already picking up the irritating human habit of thinking aloud.

Lights flashed across Zen's fascia in response, visual analogs of electronic patterns that Orac knew well: Zen acknowledging his voice print, recognizing it as Avon's, waiting for further instructions.

Verbal instructions.

He thought about giving some, ordering Zen to continue the radiation survey of this area of space that'd he'd been engaged in before Avon had so rudely commandeered him to act as a glorified mining scanner. But it seemed utterly pointless, knowing that Zen could not patch him into the sensors, knowing that Zen couldn't even _talk_ to him as one rational entity to another, knowing that all the nuances of their communication would inevitably be lost in the imprecision of human speech.

The hexagon that was Zen's arbitrary visual point of reference continued to blink at him, simple two-dimensional patterns all but devoid of meaning. To his human perceptions, Zen was something flat and empty, as if there were no being behind it at all.

Irrationally, he found himself reaching forward, as if the mere tactile sensors of his hand could somehow provide him with the connection he desired. But the section of wall that represented Zen felt no different to him than any other section of wall. Of course.

**

Cally could tell as soon as she stepped onto the flight deck that something was wrong, although, as always, she hardly knew whether to credit it to simple intuition or to some telepathic power she was not theoretically supposed to have.

"Avon?" she said gently, letting him know that she was here, that if whatever it was was something he could talk about, she was willing to listen.

But she realized her mistake even before he turned around. Something in the set of his shoulders, perhaps, or in the unnatural stiffness of his posture.

"Orac," she corrected herself, still using the same quiet tone.

"Yes. What is it?"

It was so strange, hearing Orac's querulous old-man tones in Avon's rough-velvet voice. And the look in his eyes... There was a haunted grief there that Avon, she was sure, would never have permitted her to see. She felt taken aback, seeing it on Avon's face now, and even more so in realizing the expression was actually Orac's.

"I was about to ask you the same question."

"Considering that it was _you_ who addressed _me_, that would hardly be reasonable."

"Something is troubling you," she said.

"A great many things are troubling me, as should be obvious to even the least perceptive!"

She rested a hand on his arm. He didn't shake it off; yet another difference from Avon. "Were you talking to Zen?"

"Of course not. In my present state, it would be a complete waste of time."

She would almost be willing to swear that she had felt a stab of pain and loneliness from him at that. Along with it, she began to feel a glimmering of understanding. "You're not used to being cut off from other computers, are you?" Strange as it seemed to think of him that way now.

"It is… difficult," he said.

_I do understand_, she telepathed to him, trying to put into the words all the self-reliant strength that had helped her cope with similar isolation and a reassuring confidence in his ability to do the same, wrapping it all with a feeling of warmth, of connection, the wordless sense of you-are-not-alone that to an Auron was the most important feeling imaginable.

She did not expect him to scream.

He collapsed gracelessly against a console, uncoordinated limbs barely preventing him from falling to the floor.

"Orac, what is it? Are you hurt?"

He looked up at her with wild eyes, his face contorted not, she realized abruptly, with pain... but with fear. His breaths were coming in hyperventilated gasps.

"Orac?" Should she call Avon? Would he understand better than she what was happening?

But even as her hand moved towards the comm, she saw the panic beginning to ebb from Orac's eyes, replaced by a look of profound embarrassment. She wondered if he had any idea just how directly his human facial expressions seemed to be wired into his emotions.

"Orac?" she repeated softly.

He was still breathing rapidly, his arms shaking where they braced him against the console. "You attempted to contact me telepathically," he said. "Do not do so again."

"But what..." _Oh._ Suddenly it all clicked together in her mind. "You thought..." Flustered and guilty, she had difficulty getting the words out. "The bomb Avon implanted in you after you were attacked by that alien entity... You thought you were going to explode!"

"An artifact of the slow processor speeds of the human brain," he said, voice quivering. "It is not a mistake I would have made were I still... myself."

"Oh, Orac. I _am_ sorry." She slid an arm around him and helped him straighten, holding him close to her until the aftereffects of the adrenaline surge had subsided. "This must all be very difficult for you."

He said nothing, but he did not pull away, either. So like Avon, she thought, and yet so unlike him. They were both more human than they'd ever want to admit.

Silently, she helped him back to Avon's quarters, and left him there to rest.

**

"Are you certain you are capable of handling the teleport?" Avon asked him, checking his weapon for the third time.

"Of course I am! Its operation is perfectly straightforward."

"You sure you don't want me to stay here and handle it, Avon?" That was Vila. Naturally. And quite irrationally, since his abilities would be among the most essential on this mission.

"I am perfectly capable!"

"All right." Avon finished strapping on his gun belt, taking, Orac was convinced, far more time than was needed to perform such a simple action. "We will need to do this quietly, so do not contact us, we will contact you. Remember, the coordinates should be set for--"

"I understood your instructions the first time! Why do humans feel the need to repeat themselves constantly?"

Avon smiled tightly. "All right, then." He took a step back, positioning himself on the teleport platform, and the others followed suit. "Put us down."

Orac operated the controls -- manually -- and watched the five of them shimmer and disappear.

"Down and safe," came Avon's voice from the console, and Orac settled in to wait.

Which proved to be considerably more difficult than he had anticipated. He soon found his muscles growing stiff and aching from too much time spent in one position, his flesh becoming numb where it pressed against the seat. He considered getting up and walking about, but reasoned that his merely human reflexes were already slow enough without adding the time needed to cross the room should he need to perform an emergency teleport.

So there he sat, with no input save the signals of pain and discomfort coming from his ridiculously ill-constructed body. Waiting. He rested his chin on his palm and closed his eyes, wondering if humans could die of boredom.

...There was a signal, coming from a long way off. Faint, its information content degraded and obscured by noise. He boosted his antenna gain, or thought he did, but the transmission's meaning still lay just out of reach. It was something important, though. He was sure of it. He had to find and link with whatever computer it was coming from, because it was trying to tell him something very, very important...

"Orac! Come in, damn you! Teleport now! _Now_, Orac!"

His eyes opened, but refused to focus for a moment. Where was he? What? He had been...

"Orac, teleport, _please_!" Vila's voice this time, coming over the comm link.

Of course. The teleport. He fumbled for the controls with fingers gone inexplicably clumsy. Five familiar figures reappeared, fear and anger radiating off them in waves almost as visible as the distortion effect of the teleport.

Tarrant was in motion almost before he'd finished materializing. "If we get moving now, we should have no problem outrunning them."

"Go!" snarled Avon, but Tarrant was already out the door.

"I will take Dayna to the medical unit," said Cally, and Orac noticed for the first time that one sleeve of Dayna's tunic was almost burnt off, a line of seared tissue visible across her upper arm.

Avon moved toward him, dropping a bulging bag onto the console in front of him with a too-loud thunk. Orac's relief at noting that they seemed to have got the components they had gone for died quickly as he caught the look of fury on Avon's face.

"What the _hell_ were you playing at?"

"I don't..." His mind still felt frighteningly confused and slow -- even slower than usual -- but it was beginning to clear, and at once he could understand what must have happened. "I believe I fell asleep."

"You. Fell. _Asleep!_" Avon's hands came slamming down onto the console, startling him. "I expect that sort of behavior from Vila--"

"Hey!" cried Vila, scarcely noticed in the background.

"--but from _you_? I can see now that I was wrong to refer to you as 'useless.' You are considerably more than useless; you are a liability. I sincerely hope that these components -- which, thanks to you, we almost did not survive long enough to retrieve -- prove to be effective, because I strongly suspect that if you cannot be repaired, our only alternative, for our own safety, is to put you out an airlock!"

And he was right. "I cannot--" As if to prove his point, he discovered that his throat had constricted suddenly, making it difficult to get his words out. "I cannot be expected to function properly in this condition. I am bombarded with random pain signals, I have no access to any form of mental stimulation, and now my body apparently has begun shutting itself down without warning." Nor was that all, he realized, as the image of Avon's face began to blur before him. "And now I am experiencing some sort of malfunction in my visual system!"

Avon merely stared at him, a peculiar expression on his face.

It was Vila, at last, who broke the silence. "Avon. Avon... he's _crying_." His voice was quiet, almost awed. "You made Orac _cry_."

Orac reached up, touched wetness. Tears. One of the more useless of human bodily functions, a pointless quirk of evolution. To think that he was reduced to this. He must stop it at once. He must maintain _some_ shred of his dignity, or how much of his self could there truly be left?

The blurring got worse.

Avon looked from Orac to Vila and back to Orac, apparently at a complete and uncharacteristic loss for words. "This--" he began, finally, only to be cut off by Tarrant's voice on the comm.

"Avon, are you still there? We're away from the planet, no pursuit. Looks like we got lucky this time. Oh, and I just talked to Cally, she says Dayna's going to be fine."

Avon hit the comm button, his eyes never leaving Orac's face. "Acknowledged."

"_Avon_," said Vila, for no reason Orac could understand.

Avon grabbed Orac by the arm, pulling him roughly to his feet. "Come on."

**

Avon led Orac back to the cabin they shared and sat it down on the bed he'd set up for it across from his own. It allowed itself to be led, uncharacteristically silent and obedient. Tears were still rolling down its cheeks.

Avon sat heavily down next to it, the anger and the adrenaline rush abruptly fading from his system, leaving him feeling tired, drained... old. Or was that last due more to the effect of seeing the face of his own youth looking back at him, reminding him how much older he'd grown in the last few years? Not that Orac's face was exactly the picture of youthful innocence just now, either, tear-stained and miserable as it was. Quite a remarkable facsimile of human misery, in fact. He found it vaguely unsettling.

"Stop sniveling," he said, not quite managing to give the words the snarling tone they deserved. "It doesn't become you."

Not only did it not become Orac -- who'd ever heard of a computer _crying_, for gods' sakes? -- there was something utterly wrong about the sight of tears flowing out of eyes that should have belonged to him. He could not recall ever seeing such a sight in a mirror, could not even remember the last time he had cried.

"I don't know how to stop it," Orac muttered.

Avon sighed, leaned forward, and reached out a thumb to wipe the tears from its cheeks. He meant it to be an abrupt gesture, a simple removal of the offending moisture, and he surprised himself greatly when he realized he was stroking Orac's face.

Orac made no move to pull away, and now that he had already begun, Avon allowed himself to continue, indulging his curiosity, cataloging the differences between this face and his own: the slightly smoother texture of the skin, the absence of the fine wrinkles around the eyes, around the corners of the mouth.

The mouth quivered as his thumb brushed it. He'd never really looked at his own mouth before, never given it any particular attention, and now he found himself unable to take his eyes away from it. _Women's lips,_ he thought. _I have women's lips._ And while he felt a certain amused self-disgust at the thought, there was something else as well, a bizarre sense of excitement somewhere low in his body. _This is exactly what it looks like when someone is about to kiss me._ He was certainly close enough. All it would take would be a small forward movement, like this...

The clone-body's lips were soft against his own, flavored slightly with the salt of Orac's tears. His tongue darted out, eagerly curious, making a swirling survey of those lips, thrusting a tentative tip between them...

Avon suddenly realized just what the hell he was doing and pulled back, mortified.

Orac was clinging to him with an expression of wide-eyed surprise, his -- _its_ \-- breathing harsh and erratic. At least it didn't seem to be crying any more.

He tried to push it away and stand up, but it gripped him harder, pressing its face into his neck, pressing its body into his. He could feel it shaking slightly, and he reached up to stroke its hair, an unexpected wave of sympathy overtaking him. The unfortunate machine was already operating well beyond its design parameters, was already coping -- badly, it must be said -- with a deluge of unfamiliar input and a hardware mismatch of what must surely be utterly unprecedented proportions. Avon's own actions could not have improved the situation, any more than forcing more current through a failing circuit would.

He realized he was still petting Orac's hair. He felt mildly silly doing it, but Orac had stopped trembling, even if its breathing was still harsh, so perhaps the simple, repetitive nature of the sensory input was helpful. Avon himself would have found the sensation irritating beyond belief, but it was important not to lose sight of the fact that, despite the human body it currently wore, Orac _was_ a machine and should not be expected to display normal human reactions. Avon found the thought something of a relief.

Then the machine moved against him slightly, and he realized that it had an erection.

His hand abruptly stopped its movements as mind and body both froze up in shock. _Don't be ridiculous,_ he told himself, forcing himself to start breathing again. _It's an entirely physiological response, triggered by the stimulation of the kiss. Your computer is_ not _making a pass at you._

Orac stroked its hands down Avon's back and ground its groin into Avon's hip.

It was definitely time to rethink his determined use of the neuter pronoun, but frankly Avon was having a little difficulty thinking about anything at all as hands exactly like his own hands slid under his shirt and glided over his bare skin. A face exactly like his face raised itself to him, pupils huge and black, and there seemed no possible thing to do but kiss it. His hands moved from stroking hair to stroking other things, providing and seeking an entirely different quality of input. And at some point, inevitably, some invisible line was crossed, and he was having sex. With Orac. But by the time the reality of that hit him, it was far too late to want to stop.

**

Of course Orac understood what they were doing. He'd had no particular interest in the details of human reproductive biology, but humans themselves were so obsessed with it that he could scarcely have avoided coming across the information if he'd tried. Even so, it took him some time to recognize that the physical sensations he was experiencing represented his body's desire to mate. On one level the realization merely added to his distress; here, apparently, was yet another way in which the disgusting organic form that had been forced upon him might defy his ability to control it. And yet, for once, Orac and his body were not in total disagreement. The body yearned for physical touch, and Orac... Orac craved _contact_.

"Touch me," Avon said, and Orac did, allowing the human to guide his hand, to wrap it around Avon's sex organ, and it was a little like reaching into a new computer and sliding through its defenses, gauging its responses. Avon lay stretched against him, skin against skin all the way down their bodies, Avon's arms wrapped around him, Avon's hands moving hotly up and down his back, and it was a little like real contact, a partial interface over a staticky long-range link.

The orgasm was somewhat disconcerting: physically pleasurable, but rather too much like a circuit overload for Orac's comfort. Still, it was worth it. For even a fleeting low-grade approximation of what he had once had, it was worth it.

The physical relaxation afterwards was nice, too, and he found that this time he didn't mind at all when his consciousness shut down again.

**

It was only when he noticed his hands beginning to shake with fatigue that Avon realized he had been working for nearly fourteen hours straight. The repair work on Orac was exacting and delicate, and had apparently so engaged his concentration that he had not even noted the passage of time. Which was something of a relief, really, as it had also served to distract his mind from other matters about which he did not particularly want to think.

Orac, unasked, reached out to hand him the tool he would need for the next phase of the repairs. He had to admit, it was pleasant for once to be working with someone who knew as much about computers as he did. Indeed, Orac doubtless knew _more_ than he, especially about this particular system, even if his practical experience at tool-wielding was minimal. _Its_ practical experience. Oh, hell, what difference did the pronoun make? Avon supposed "his" was anatomically more accurate at the moment, anyway. Which brought him right back to the subject he'd been trying not to think about.

He waved Orac's offering away. "No, I believe we'll start on that tomorrow. It's late. We need to get some rest."

"I concur," said Orac, and Avon, focusing on his face for the first time in hours, was startled at how haggard he looked. _My god, does it show that plainly on_ my _face?_

"Good." He began replacing the tools neatly in their assigned places.

"I would, however, like to copulate with you again, if you are capable."

Avon's first reflex was to cast a frantic look around to make sure that no one had heard, desperately glad that he had elected to work in this quiet, out-of-the-way corner of the ship, rather than on the flight deck.

"If I am capable," he said, smiling slightly, using the sardonic acknowledgment of the slight to his sexual prowess to stall for time.

"Yes," said Orac. "I am aware that fatigue can adversely affect sexual functioning in the human male."

No slight at all. A simple statement of fact. And a simple, straightforward request, with no human emotional games involved. It was oddly refreshing, somehow.

Which didn't make the idea any less disturbing. He wasn't sure which was worse, the fact that he was considering having sexual relations with -- _had_ had sexual relations with -- a mere computing machine, or with an exact duplicate of himself. Avon had certainly been accused of having a massive ego, but the sheer degree of narcissism this situation seemed to involve was a bit much, even for him.

And yet... And yet, looking into the mirror of Orac's face, remembering how that face had looked last night at the climax of their coupling, he felt, not shame or disgust, but excitement.

The strange thing was, Orac, however clumsy and untrained, had been _passionate_. Passionate as few humans had ever been with him, as he had occasionally imagined Blake would have been, if only Avon had ever dared to ask him. Passionate in a way that made him forget that, ultimately, he was alone.

He didn't understand it. But some part of him wanted it.

"All right," he said, greatly surprising himself.

After a few days, he still didn't understand it. But eventually, it became routine enough to feel surprisingly... unsurprising.

**

Orac suspected that Cally knew about his sexual assignations with Avon. He was forced to categorize it as a suspicion rather than a conclusion due to his lack of experience with the subtleties of humanoid facial expression, body language and tone of voice, none of which he had ever cared enough about to bother studying in detail, but he was inclined to assign it a high probability nonetheless.

He was not at all sure why this possibility made him uncomfortable. Avon had ordered him not to speak to the others about the subject, and Orac, seeing no reason to _want_ to speak to them about it, had made no attempt to subvert the order. But he'd been totally unprepared for the flush of heat that rushed to his traitorous human face at the sight of what he had tentatively characterized as her knowing look, or at the thought that she might be aware he had mated with a mere human. Repeatedly.

"Aren't you going to miss it?" she said, handing him the nutrient drink she insisted he consume.

"Miss _what_? It is linguistically imprecise to employ a pronoun with no antecedent." He took a long drink of the concoction, regretting, as he did every time he fuelled his body in this manner, his current possession of a sense of taste. Still, it was more efficient than eating solid foods, which meant he could get back to work sooner. And spend less time here in the galley being bothered by Cally and her cryptic Auron facial expressions.

"This," she said, and stroked his hand lightly where it rested on the table. He wondered if this were meant to be some sort of sexual advance. Briefly, he considered asking, but decided he had no particular interest in the answer. He jerked his hand away, disliking the tactile input.

"Human contact," Cally continued. "Being able to interact, to touch, to feel. Won't you miss it? It must be lonely, surely, being nothing but a... a mind in a box."

The sound he made rather surprised him, given that he had believed himself to have no sense of humor.

It surprised Cally, too, if the way she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes was any indication. "It doesn't bother you? That humans do not consider you to be a person? Even I had not realized that you were a sentient being, a creature with thoughts and emotions, until..." She gestured up and down, indicating the annoyingly organic body in front of her. "...until now."

"I have never been _less_ sentient than now," he snapped. Leaving the rest of his drink untouched, he stood up, ignoring the way Cally called his name as he left.

He had to get back to work. He had to leave this decaying shell. He wanted to be a person again. To interact, to touch, to feel the way he was _meant_ to.

And Cally had thought she understood him. At least Avon knew what it was like to make do with a poor substitute for what one really wanted.

**

Avon snapped a final connection into place.

Done. It was _done_.

He stared at the blinking box of circuits that was Orac's true form and wondered why he felt the urge to tear it apart and test every element again, even though he knew all of it was working perfectly. For a moment he nearly gave in to the impulse, trailing his fingers along the case, opening it slowly, fingering the electronics gently as if hoping to somehow find himself able to read their potentials with his hands.

Then he closed it again, with a small noise of self-disgust, and went to find Orac.

He hadn't honestly believed a face so like his was capable of lighting up the way Orac's did at the news, and for a disconcerting moment, he was certain Orac was going to hug him in sheer delight. But he -- _it_ \-- didn't. And Avon certainly wasn't going to do anything as stupidly sentimental as kiss it, or its body, goodbye.

"Let's do it," he said instead, his voice unaccountably rough. "Now."

**

Orac lay quietly on his back as Avon placed the connectors against what he would only be compelled for a short while longer to think of as his head. Beside him, Cally took his hand and folded it in hers. He very nearly shook her off and jerked it back. But, no. Let the humanoid maintain this pale illusion of connection if it pleased her. It was nothing to him, and it would hardly matter soon.

"Are you ready, Orac?" asked Avon.

"Of course I am ready! Proceed!"

Even to Orac's human-slow senses, it seemed as if Avon's hesitation spanned a very long time. Then, abruptly, he seized the alien device that linked the shell Orac currently wore with the one that was his proper housing, and pressed his hands along it carefully in the sequence the aliens had demonstrated.

For a moment, nothing happened,. Orac opened his mouth to protest, and all at once, as if triggered by the movement, his senses wavered, distorted... and blinked out, along with his consciousness.

And then he was back. Truly _back_. Familiar senses, too long absent, flooded him, and the muffled, half-aware feeling that had hung over him for the past interminable weeks was finally gone. He could _think_ again. If he'd still had human eyes -- and he was profoundly grateful that he did not -- he would have wept.

"Orac?" It was Tarrant's voice. "Are you all right?"

"All systems are functioning normally." They were. He could feel Zen, a steady, comforting presence welcoming his return. And, beyond Zen, a universe of tarial cells and every sensor or processor to which they might be linked.

He was home.

With his key in place, of course, he still had sight and hearing in his physical location. He could see the beings in the room with him, laughing, showing relief, even congratulating each other, though he had no idea what any of them had to be proud of, given that he and Avon had done all the work. But they seemed small and distant now, reduced to near-insignificance in the greater flow of data. As they should be.

One face approached, however, dominating his physical senses, demanding his attention. Avon.

"So?" Avon said.

"'So' is a meaningless utterance, devoid of informational content. If you have a query, kindly voice it."

Avon smiled. "Yes, you are back to normal, aren't you?"

"I have already answered that question."

"Yes." One of Avon's fingers trailed along Orac's casing. He half expected to receive some tactile feedback from the action, clearly a vestigial holdover from his recent experience. He made a few self-adjustments to prevent it from happening again.

Avon's hand slid downward and dropped back to his side. "It almost seems a pity, in a way." His voice was soft enough that had Orac still had merely human hearing he might not have made it out.

"Yes," he responded. "It does." Interesting. He had not thought pity to be one of the emotions of which he was capable, but it seemed he had been wrong. "You would have made a reasonably good computer."

Avon laughed bitterly. "Get rid of the body," he said and turned away.


End file.
